Business leaders are turning their attention toward building prosperity at home, in the communities where they live and work. They are using their most limited resource — their personal time — to tackle complex local issues, such as health and health care, K-12 education, early childhood development, housing, and hunger. They do so because they believe that thriving citizens and communities make for stronger companies, happier workers, and a positive leadership legacy.
Early innovators in this space are transforming their companies’ priorities and leading cross-sector partnerships to drive local goals. Bob Rivers, CEO of Boston-based Eastern Bank, is one example: He set his sights on the struggling midsize cities in the region, building the first full-service bank branch in 20 years in Lawrence, Massachusetts, a formerly thriving textile mill town bowed down by poverty and joblessness. Rivers then helped launch the Lawrence Partnership, which offers bilingual work training, a venture loan fund for local businesses, and regional collaboration on broader structural issues. He is replicating the model in other Massachusetts cities and recently cofounded a new statewide business coalition to advocate for early childhood education.
In five years of studying and advising these kinds of business-led ventures, I have found that a common thread unites them. Instead of adopting a command-and-control leadership style, in which people in power propose solutions and push them out into the world, these CEOs architect innovation ecosystems that unleash the potential for collective co-creation. This leadership mindset allows a community’s grassroots wisdom and priorities to blend with business leaders’ vision and data-driven analytics — producing solutions that everyone believes they own.
To get there, initiatives demonstrate five tenets: They tell a clear, purposeful story; they combine community priorities with institutional goals; they’re led inclusively; they typically influence the member organizations’ own internal policies; and they impel company leaders to acknowledge difficult truths.